Damask Rose
by C. F. Moore
Summary: Holden, the Blade Runner gunned down by Leon during his Voight-Kampff test, returns to hunt the very man who took over the job after him, his friend and fellow hunter- Deckard.


Damask Rose

((Author's note: I have not read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". The characters and situations that occur here are based solely on the tiny slice of life portrayed in the movie Blade Runner. This is fanfiction. You have been warned.))

"The most important aspect of any work, be it detective or artistic, is to find a focus: A place to begin. Take the play of light on the water. The screaming blue of a summer sky. Even the lethal tip of a pencil, if it suits you. Now step back and examine that thing for what it is. How does it fit into the world- your world- as that thing? Answer that question, and the rest will create itself."

-Dr. Emmanuel Foster. _Fundamental Secrets,_ vol. 2

By the time he was able to walk without the damn respirator, Deckard was already gone. He'd followed the proceedings as best he could from the hospital terminal, but after the female replicant on the south side was killed- what had her name been? Zelda? Zora?- the trail got muddy. Sitting in his sterilized bed, waiting for the permanently backlogged techs over at Tyrell to clone him a new set of lungs, sans gaping bullet hole. They still felt a little wonky, like balloons that didn't inflate all the way, but it was a thousand times better than waiting for some horrible machine to inflate, hoping every time that it wouldn't go on the fritz and leave him gasping like a caught fish.

So far it hadn't. But he didn't trust technology. Just look at the damn Replicants.

The door whooshed open and a nurse bustled in, as white and sterile as the contaminant-sealed paper-crisp ice-cold bedsheets they hermetically sealed him in every night. Even the food in the place tasted like bathroom cleaner. He had to get out.

"Good morning, Mister Holden." She always pronounced it that way, with the 'mister' elongated. He reviled her, and her starched bedside manner, and had made a point of not learning her name.

"Good morning-"

"Julie."

"Julie. Right." Instead of filing it away, he dropped the name on the floor of his memory-closet.

"How are you feeling today?"

"Better." He took a deep breath, feeling the too-tight sacs of his lungs expanding inside his chest. "Think I could have a cigarette?"

"Not yet, Mr. Holden." She favored him with a distainful look. _Sure, go ahead, ruin our hard work_, that look said. "Doctor Barstow wants another week for your lungs to get acclaimated. Then we'll see."

"You're planning to keep me here another week?" His heart quailed. Another seven days of hermetically sealed chicken dinners, and the candy-striper wouldn't have to worry about smoking killing him off.

The woman- she was tall, probably half a head taller than him, if he were standing- bent down and punched a few keys on his chart. "Probably not," she said, her back to him now. "Which means we'll be relying on the honor system with you. Think you can handle that?"

He caught the distainful note in her voice again.

"You don't smoke, do you?"

She turned around to face him again, and now, he could see, she was angry. "Of _course_ I don't smoke, Mister Holden. Smoking is a remarkably unhealthy, useless habit developed by a primitive culture and carried into the modern age by people who don't know any better."

He scowled at her. "That's a 'no', then?"

She scowled back. "That is a 'no'."

"Then don't go preaching at me about how I'll have to 'handle' not smoking. You don't know a goddamned thing about it, and if your mother had any sense, she'd have taught you not to lecture about things you don't understand. Now, do you have anything else you need to tell me about? No? Then get the hell out of my room and let me alone."

The nurse turned on her heel and stomped away. The door slid shut behind her.

Something went beep.

The phone light was on, probably had been on since halfway between his snarling session with the twenty-something in the white uniform. He leaned over the side of the bed and tapped the Power button.

"Johnny!"

Bryant.

He put a hand to his head. "Morning, Captain."

"Looking pretty good, Holden."

"Sure." Liar. "Ready to walk back into your precinct, soon as the butchers let me go."

"Yeah. About that." Bryant's heavy, unshaven face folded into a frown. "I think we're going to have to pull you back onto the street, whether the doctors like it or not. You think you'd be willing to sign a relase form?"

"Hell yes. What's this about, Bryant?"

"Security walked into the Tyrell building fifteen minutes ago. They just reported to us. Turns out they found the head of the company- I mean Tyrell himself- dead on the floor of his bedroom with his head crushed in. They got security camera footage."

"Well? Don't dance around with your hand on my ass all night. Who did it?"

"Roy Batty."

Bryant had his attention. "The Replicant? I thought he was dead- you sent Deckard after him, right?"

"Yeah...Deckard's working on the job." Bryant looked unduly nervous. "He'll get to him, in time."

"Great. So what do you need me for? Deckard's the best."

"Yeah, I know." He could see the sweat forming at Bryant's hairline. "Look, come down to the station, we'll talk about it. If I send you the requisite forms, can you give an electronic thumbprint from that terminal?"

"I should be able to. Send everything along, and we'll see."

"On its way."

Four hours later, they gave him his street clothes back.


End file.
